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One of Australia’s most seasoned elite SAS soldiers has initiated a discreet campaign to persuade the government to establish a form of national service for every student upon completing year 10.
He says it would be nation-building and help to save “the anxious generation”.
His name is Harry Moffitt and after 30 years in the Army, he knows life and death.
He understands pressure, motivation, fear and courage.
He completed 11 active deployments and saw almost 1000 days of combat operations.
He was wounded and a good friend was killed in the same explosion in Afghanistan.
Moffitt is out of the army now and a qualified psychologist.
He describes himself as “a pacifist” and is a deep thinker about issues like juvenile crime.
His idea is to establish a tripartite system funded by industry, organised by government and assessed by academics.
He has already approached Labor ministers with his proposal, though he remains skeptical about their willingness to bear the costs necessary to aid an upcoming generation.
Should there be a form of national service for young Australians?
In a conversation on my podcast, Neil Mitchell Asks Why?, Moffitt highlights the increasing psychological evidence showing that an obsession with devices, especially phones, has deprived young individuals of time and cultivated an “anxious generation”.
“I would be sympathetic to a universal or nationwide gap year offering at every school as an option, at say the end of year 10.
“They could go off and do national service, although maybe we should move away from that term. Words mean a lot. Gap year seems much better.”
Moffitt says he has been “banging on” about the idea in the corridors of power.
“I think there’s a great opportunity here, a tripartite – business, government and academic – that we could incorporate into this.
“The goal isn’t to make national service mandatory. Instead, we could structure it to be meaningful, purposeful, and instill some of the skills that this generation seems to be lacking,” he notes.
“It would be nation-building. One of the greatest investments and a generational investment we could make.
“I think there is something unique about this generation coming through that is good and bad but I think my mind turns more to the bad than the good.
“I think this is a response we need, a dramatic response.”
The scheme he suggests would not be compulsory, but highly promoted and recommended.
Would the Army want to manage it? Would the government “bean counters” finance it?
Inevitably, he has ideas about funding.
“Get over yourself, bean counters.
“There are dozens of huge military industrial complex businesses making gazillions off the top of our taxpayer money.
“So you want to build tanks for us? Come and help us build a program.”
Moffitt said more work needed to be done to assess whether the program could be used in court sentencing of minor offenders.
A two-year form of national service, later restricted to 18 months, ran in Australia from 1964 to 1972.
An earlier, shorter scheme, ran from 1951 to 1959.
The Moffitt scheme is not designed to build army numbers.
It is more of a “boot camp” to help young Australians on their way in life.
Interestingly, the Victorian opposition recently proposed a compulsory live-in initiative called ReStart, intended as a program for responsibility and discipline, but aimed solely at young offenders aged 12 to 17.
The premise of Moffitt’s proposal is that military life can impart valuable skills and a sense of camaraderie that helps set young people on a positive path, though a primary concern would be how many would subsequently return to school.
Nobody would claim a well-structured gap year would turn around the lives of a generation of 16-year-old Australians.
Regardless, Moffitt has been a human performance manager for the SAS, our best and bravest soldiers.
He now lectures them on ethics.
He has put his life on the line countless times for his country over almost 30 years.
With his military background and psychology training, he has a deeper understanding than many about the concept.
He has thought it through and is passionate about it.
Like it or not, when this man walks through the door of any federal minister he deserves a hearing.
As a nation, it is the least we owe him.
Neil Mitchell’s podcast is posted each Tuesday through Nine Podcasts.
Harry Moffitt has released a book on how to maximise high performance called The Fourth Pillar.
It is published by Macmillan.
